Friday, March 12, 2010

It isn't often you see a cartoon that combines the darkness of deadly disease with childhood candy icons, and that's just the sort of experience that Bizarro hopes to provide from time to time. I don't know if anyone else likes this cartoon, but I'm sort of proud of it.

I don't eat M&Ms anymore because I'm vegan and they have milk chocolate in them, but I used to love them. It's not so bad to have an ethical reason to avoid things like M&Ms, though (I say that because health reasons wouldn't be enough to keep me away from them). It's a good way to avoid unnecessary calories. I used to be really hooked on milk chocolate and didn't like dark chocolate much at all, but now that it is the only kind I will eat, I've developed a taste for it and love it. I tried a bite of milk chocolate not long ago and thought it was really wimpy. Dark chocolate is actually good for you (if not sweetened with sugar) so it's one of my acceptable vices. As opposed to heroin*, which my doctor told me to cut back on.

*Note to children and gullible adults: I don't use heroin.

Late addition: A reader wrote to me about this post and mentioned that much of the world's chocolate is harvested by slaves (many are children) and that it is important to choose "fair trade" chocolate. Which I always do. I should have mentioned that, thanks for the correction!Here's a quick article explaining that and a list of companies that do and don't use slave chocolate. As of this writing, Mars company, who makes M&Ms still uses slavery cocoa.http://fairchocolate.org/

At the risk of getting you hooked on "milk chocolate" again, did you know there's a vegan alternative that's very velvety and I think even better than the dairy stuff..."Ricemilk Choco". Photo @ http://www.worldpantry.com/terranostra/img/product/ter-202010.jpg

I totally know what you mean, I've come to love dark chocolate since going vegan too. But those GoMaxGo bars are pretty incredible. It's a good thing they're so expensive or I would eat them every day.

same here.... I grew up on all things milk-derived (even had an Aunt who insisted I drink the warm smelly stuff straight from the udder... well, about 10 minutes freshly squeezed). Nowadays we (me, wife & four spawn, all vegan) get lots of good dark chocolate via www.onfc.ca, specifically, Coco Camino bars, Green & Black's cocoa powder, Endangered Species bars, etc.

Is there ever any problem in using something like this (a corporate logo) in a cartoon? I wondered if you ever speculate about the possibility of a lawsuit for something like this. Not that this is offensive, but still.

P.S. Glad to see you'll be at the Cartoon Festival this year - I'll be there!